Circa 1969 - Toronto Rock & Roll Revival - me playing with Chuck Berry!

[Macaroni]

In Sept 1969 in Toronto, a local concert promoter put on the Toronto Rock & Roll Revival, starring many of the big oldies... Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, along with a lot of other currently popular bands like Chicago, etc.

The headliner was John Lennon in his first live appearance without the Beatles, right after the Montreal bed-in and "Give Peace A Chance" recording. John played with Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman, and others, with Yoko in a bag screeching! (yuk!).

My band was the only local band to play on the show - we opened the show with 3 numbers. Our manager knew the promoter.

During the afternoon, my manager came running up to me and asked if I wanted to play with Chuck Berry. I was confused - "What happened to his guitar player, I asked?" He doesn't have one - my manager replied. I said what do you mean? He said he didn't have any band members and they were scrambling to put together a band, since he was going on in 15 minutes! Do you want to play with him or not? HELL YAH!!!

So I got on stage with a few other musicians I knew from other local bands and we just stood there waiting. Chuck was up front talking to the people. Then he said, "Alright, we're gonna do this one in... and he slid his hand up the fretboard, landing on Bb - he turned around and yelled - B flat! And he just started playing!

So we jumped in right away and then he started singing and we finally knew what song it was, although I can't remember now. That's how it went for the whole set. Sometimes he didn't even tell us the key - he just started playing and we had to catch up fast!

What a riot! I was 19, with a big Italian Afro, thick black glasses, my 60s era Dot Neck 335 (I paid $200 for it!). You can see me in the clips with the yellow t-shirt. Chuck even gave me a couple of solos.

It wasn't until about 7 years later that someone told me there was a movie about this show, and finally several years later I found the video - it's about John Lennon at the Toronto Rock & Roll Revival. Each of the oldies have one song in the movie, and Chuck does Johnny Be Good. You can see me in that clip a few times.

Then last night at a dinner party, a friend told me there are a few more clips from that show that were unpbublished till now, and I'm in them each for a few seconds.

Anyway, it was a great experience and lots of fun.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=HsK1OPt_tTI

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=oVC7zSXa27A

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=35CjwFZpHyQ
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[Structo]

That's great!!!!

I guess Chuck was famous for that thing about playing in an off key and letting the back up band struggle to figure out what tune he was even playing.
But since just about all his songs are structured the same, you just grab the pattern in whatever key.
By most accounts poor old Chuck was very arrogant.

I loved that movie Hey Hey Rock and Roll ( I think ) where he's telling Keith Richards how to play Johnny B Good.
You could tell Keef wanted to hit him.
Chuck: it's my pad, you'll play it like I want or you can leave.

[rkstarr]

awesome ...words cant describe that..didnt see ya in the vid

[Lucidology]

Wow ... what a story and how great to have the U-Tubes ....
Too cool ....